Author Archives: tyang047

Lunar New Year Tea Ceremony

“Every lunar new year, whenever I’m in Singapore with my family, we would go to my grandparents’ place and we would have a tea ceremony, which meant like me and my entire extended family who lives in Singapore would meet up, and just kind of like eat food together and have tea. The proper ceremony, where it’s like we pass out hongbao, is when the two people you’re honoring are sitting down at a couch, and you have to give tea to them. They are always older, and that’s why you’re honoring them, like your elders. You would do this by giving them blessings and telling them what you wish for them, all the luck and health and fortune you would like to give them for the next year. And you tell them how much they mean to you and you give them tea. And when you do that, they’ll correspond back and give wishes to you, with your hongbao. And you have to do that for your grandparents, uncles, aunts, great uncles, et cetera et cetera.”

Context: This description was gathered from a conversation I had with the teller where I asked for any traditions or festivals that he would recall. The teller has lived in Singapore since childhood, and is currently a student at the University of Southern California. 

Analysis: This tradition occurs within another festivity, that of the Lunar New Year, and thus gains a liminal significance from the transition between the prior year and upcoming year. It is performed primarily by the younger generation to an older generation, although it is expected for the older generation to respond to the initiation by the younger generation. In providing blessings to each party, the participants are in a way enacting preparations for the coming year, whether it be financial or luck-based. In general, as the teller explained, it is a way for participants to recognize, honor, and celebrate familial relationships, a tenet of many East Asian cultures with Confucian influences, at a significant and perhaps magical point in time where it would be the most effective. This particular Lunar New Year tradition experienced by the teller also notably uses the offering of tea as a catalyst for the interaction. Tea, in this case, is invoked to set up the scenario as a social interaction, a gathering of different peoples, as the drink is traditionally used in situations outside of the holiday. Thus, the usage of tea could perhaps be seen as a tool used to help cross otherwise difficult boundaries, especially for those of a younger generation. 

Scout Camp Announcements Tradition

“Every morning and every night, we do these announcements at the flag ceremony for the day. Where there’s a person who’s like the officer of the day, who’s in charge of running things for the day, stands at the front and calls out any of the staff members who have announcements for the day, and they like jump forward and do their little bits, where they say jokes and do their little announcements. After the last dinner before everyone heads out of camp, we head out to the flag area again,and we line up and usually the program director will pretend they’re like the fake officer of the day and do a full flag ceremony, even when there are no scouts, and everyone is allowed to give a parting message. And so we’ll make references and say silly stuff. Like last year, there was one moment where this younger staff member yelled very loudly at me, ‘[Teller’s name] you have diarrhea on your hands!’ and so I made an announcement where I said I had diarrhea on my hands. 

Context: This tradition was gathered from a conversation I had with the teller, where I asked if there were any significant traditions or festivals he remembered from his life. As previously mentioned, this tradition is from a summer scout camp that the teller worked at. The camp operated on a weekly basis across a month or so, where a new batch of scouts were brought in each week. The teller told me of three traditions, of which this is the third. 

Analysis: Performed by and for the staff of this scout camp, this particular tradition is a transformation of a standardized daily routine, done during a specific liminal time (the end of the weekly program). In contrast to the more structured nature of the daily announcements, this tradition takes on a more humorous note, deriving hilarity from the contrast between the absurd statements and the supposed formality of the usual traditions. Happening at the end of the weekly program, before a new cycle of scouts come through, this tradition seems to reinforce and celebrate the connections built amongst the staff and between the staff and the scouts during the weekly period, almost making sure that some part of the prior experience stays with them as they face another change in the coming week. 

Scout Camp Closing Campfire Traditions

This tradition belongs to the scout camp that the teller worked at over the summer as a teenager. He explains that every week, there is an opening campfire and a closing campfire, the staff performing for the scouts in the first and the scouts performing for the group in the second. 

“At the end of those campfires, we always sing a song as a couple of the staff members escort everyone out of the campfire bowl. It’s like these scout vespers. It’s to the tune of “Oh Christmas Tree” and it’s just this slow song about like, loving your parents, trying to be a nice person, following the scout law […] and so, it’s like a super chill and slow way to end the night. And once all the scouts leave, we [the staff] slowly ramp the song up until we’re like shouting it […] and we’ll like, start jumping,and that’s when it’ll end with a little call-and-response thing, where whoever is program director will say “aye aye aye” and everyone is like “aye aye aye.” Then that’s when the program director [and everyone] congratulate each other for a good campfire, and then [the program director] pulls out someone they would like to recognize that week. 

Context: This tradition was gathered from a conversation I had with the teller, where I asked if there were any significant traditions or festivals he remembered from his life. As previously mentioned, this tradition is from a summer scout camp that the teller worked at. The camp operated on a weekly basis across a month or so, where a new batch of scouts were brought in each week. The teller told me of three traditions, of which this is the first. 

Analysis: Both campers and the staff involve themselves in this tradition, all of them performing for the closed population, with no external audience. The closing campfire traditions have liminal significance, marking the departure of the scouts from their week long excursion. The closing campfire mirrors the significance of the opening campfire, emphasizing the connections created at the camp and the lessons learned during the experience. Both the persisting song that continues after the campers leave, and the call and response activity, seems to be commemorating a lasting connection built during the week-long program in spite of the departure of the scouts, which brings a physical distance between the scouts and the staff. Additionally, the unity celebrated in both activities also marks a transition for the campers, as they are perhaps now of the same level as the staff that guided them. 

Kakamatobi, or Fancy Dress Festival

The teller explained to me a festival/celebration that takes place in Ghana called the Kakamotobi, or the Fancy Dress Festival, which they experienced in their childhood while living in Ghana. As the teller explains, celebrations take place from late November to early December, in preparation for the Christmas holiday. The festival is characterized by people dressed in vivid costumes, which the teller describes as having “vivid yellow face[s], red lips, bulging eyes, feathery colorful costumage […] some people had stilts too.” They also explained that these costumed characters would “chase others” as other people ran away, humorously noting that it was “lowkey evil honestly, cause why would you just chase children.”

Context: This text was gathered from a conversation I had with the teller, where I asked for any significant festivals or traditions they could share with me. The teller is of Ghanaian descent and spent their childhood in the country near the coastside city of Tema. They noted during their explanation that this festival was something that they could see outside from their home, so they have a close proximity to the celebration itself. 

Analysis: From additional research from online sources (specifically this article: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fancy-dress-festival-winneba-ghana), the historic roots for this festival comes from the early 20th century, following years of Dutch and English colonial rule over Ghana. Specifically, Ghanaians took aspects from Dutch masquerade practices, which they interacted with at white-owned bars, and incorporated them into their own customs. This celebration eventually became associated with the identity of Ghana itself, as indicated by the first president of Ghana recognizing and supporting the festival following Ghana’s independence from Britain in the mid-1900s. While the teller notes that celebrations took place from November to December, online articles say that celebrations typically take place between Christmas and the New Year. The discrepancy may be just rooted in differences in memory, but it could also be a result of differences across regions. While the teller experienced the festival near the coast, around the area of Temu, the festival itself originates from Central Ghana, and may have been iterated upon as it spread across the country. Kakamotobi has some liminal significance, taking place at the boundary between the old and new year, but its importance perhaps comes from its value as a nation-defining event, given its historical context. 

Viewing Flowers Festival

“One festival there is in Korea is when the cherry blossoms bloom in spring. It’s called 꽃구경 (or viewing flowers). It’s not really a formal festival organized by the government or an organization but it has a similar vibe because a lot of people gather in parks to have picnics and cook food, and there’s a lot of live performances by artists. I remember going to Seoul Forest, a big park in metropolitan Seoul, a lot around early April to see the flowers bloom with my friends and family. It’s always really packed then because there’s not a lot of places to see nature in an urban city like Seoul and everyone wants to take pictures of themselves with the flowers. It has a really festive atmosphere because at that time of the year winter is just ending and the cherry blossoms are among the first flowers to bloom in the spring. So everyone’s coming out for the first time in a while to spend time outdoors and enjoy the return of warm weather.”

Context: This text was given to me through an online text message after requesting for an instance of a festival or tradition that the teller has experienced in the past. The teller was a student at an international school in South Korea, where many of her fellow students had Korean cultural roots.

Analysis: This particular holiday is celebrated during the start of spring by a wide population of people, though as the teller describes, modern celebrations like picnicking and artist performances seem to be catered towards the younger generation rather than holding onto old tradition. While many holidays and festivals are derived from a specific time relative to a celestial calendar, whether it be the solar or lunar calendar, the timing of this particular event/tradition is based around a biological, botanical calendar. It is not exactly beholden to a specific celestial cycle, but rather an observable shift in the surroundings itself, manifested by the blooming flowers. Perhaps due to its greater “earthiness,” the festival that the teller describes is more casual and less ritualized, with many gathering with friends for more informal, unstructured events like picnicking or gatherings with friends. The importance of the festival, of course, comes from the liminality of the boundary between winter and spring, a transition marked by the bloom. The lighthearted celebrations perhaps act as a way to encourage similar activities to occur in the coming months, where the weather will continue to be warmer and enjoyable.